New member here...

had a wierd experience with my A4 the other day. I just bought the car three weeks ago so I'm still learning and getting a feel for the car. I pulled my car in the garage and took out my stuff and pulled my cell phone charger out of the cig lighter. Well the POS charger fell apart and the metal part in the end of the plug fell into the lighter. I decided to use my sunglass arm to try and gingerly fish them out....when all of a sudden a huge spark flew out of the lighter which triggered my horn to blow and headlight washers to pop up and spray fluid at a constant rate. I could do NOTHING to stop the horn from blowing or the washers to stop spraying. At this point I'm in a bit of a panic because turning the iginition back and forth was doing nothing to stop it. So I started the car and backed it out of the garage...horn blowing, sprayers spraying....at this point all my neighbors are coming out and looking at me like I'm nutz. So I pop the hood and after going deaf in my right ear manage to get the battery cable off which obviously cut all power. After I regrouped and regained hearing in my ear, i thought....I just bought a $34,000 car three weeks ago that pulls this crap???? I called the dealer and the dude thought I was crazy...yet he was respectful. So in the end I have an entire bottle of washer fluid drained in my garage, partially deaf in my right ear and no idea what could have gone wrong. Since that particular incident, the car has been perfect with no issues. Matter a fact I've never driven a car that handled better. The thing just bangs around curves like its job...

So if anyone has had a weird malfunction, let me know!
G

 

Wow, hope you don't mind, but that was really funny! I've never heard of anything like that before in my life.

 

it was pretty funny and the guy at dealer thought so too. Just hope nothing like that happens again.

 

That same thing happened to me and my cell charger... the metal piece fell in and sparks flew, but no malfunctions like you had...

 

I'm assuming your fuse was blown. I need to replace mine...although I may never plug another thing into that lighter! It must have been one of those things. Thanks for the reply.

G

 

when i saw it spark, i popped the fuse cover off and pulled the fuse... so the line was dead b4 it could cause some real damage.

 

God stop! I'm rolling around on the floor nearly pissing myself! Oh thank you and welcome!

 

Wow, sorry but that was very entertaining - enjoyed the image in my head. Anyway, my guess is that the temporary electrical short followed by a voltage spike back up to 12 volts probably caused the computer to randomly turn those outputs on. I wouldn't worry about it at all. Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery is exactly what the computer needed to reset itself. Take care.

 

From what I've been reading, it sounds like your right. I was just freaked b.c I haven't even made 1 payment on the car and I thought I fried the electric system!

 

Just wanted to give everyone an update with my insane electrical malfunction....which I thought was just a fluke!

Since its been cold out, when I start the car the horn blows for about 5 seconds and my headlights get a courtesy wash from the sprayers.
Couldn't stand getting weird stares from passerby's so I took the car in for my 5,000 mile service and to get this electrical thing resolved. The dealer ended up finding the problem after they experienced the horn blowing and bumper spray....turns out when my lighter blew out, it fried some of the circuits on the electronic control module under the dash. They need to replace the whole module.

Beware of pluggin your cell charger into the lighter. The dealer said they've had problems with this before....something about the Audi lighters being smaller in diameter than traditional lighters....who knows if he's just blowin' smoke up my a$$ or not.

All i know is I needed to wait till January 10th for an Audi loner.....I said, give me whatever you got, I'm not waiting.....so I'm cruisin' Chevy style....Malibu that is....with different hub caps in the front than in the back.....a real cruiser! [8D] Miss my ride!!!!